Home > News Story and Obituary ArchiveNews: CBG Says Goodbye to Tabloid Rootsposted April 19, 2004

April 19 -- Comics Buyer's Guide, hobby magazine giant Krause Publications' veteran entry covering the comic book industry with an emphasis on the collecting market, surprised many industry watcher by making public their efforts to move from weekly tabloid newspaper to a monthly magazine. The longest-running publication on the subject of comic books with roots in the superhero and science fiction fanzines of the 1950s and '60s and the fan-connecting adzines of the 1970s, the Buyer's Guide has long been synonymous with its current fold-over newsprint format. But as the periodical comics that are its bread and butter continue to give way to trade collections, starting with June's issue #1595 the weekly tabloid will become a 244-page square-bound monthly magazine.

One point of emphasis indicates that the Buyer's Guide may have a different competitor in mind than its long-standing rivalry with this magazine as the industry's publication of record. The new monthly Guide will feature a price guide of the kind that runs in Wizard, this one based on a system used in the well-received Krause-published annual The Standard Catalog of Comic Books that relies on actual transactions. Editor Maggie Thompson will remain on staff at the publication, which will raise its price to $5.99. The Comics Buyer's Guide will join such entries as a re-formatted Comics Journal, a slightly tweaked Wizard, the Top Shelf version of Comic Book Artist and the surging quarterly Comic Art in a crowded magazine market.